A case to look through
A soccer team
What does sharing the same goal leave unresolved?
A soccer team makes the limits of goal agreement easy to see. Everyone can want to win while successful play still depends on differentiated roles, compatible plans, perception, timing, and continual adjustment.
Start with the puzzle
Everyone can want the same thing and still play terribly.
The goalkeeper, striker, defenders, and midfielders can all share the objective of winning the match.
But they cannot all pursue that goal by doing the same thing. Their local activities must differ, complement one another, and change in response to what teammates and opponents are doing.
The shared goal matters, but it does surprisingly little of the detailed coordinative work by itself.
Try looking at this case through
Goal alignment
The players share a high-level intended outcome.
LensBehavioral alignment
Each player's action can be evaluated relative to the evolving activity and role.
DissociationShared goals ≠ coordinated behavior
Wanting to win does not tell the players how to coordinate.
How it happensImplementation
Roles, plans, cues, communication, and learned patterns turn the shared objective into situated action.
LensFunctional alignment
Different positions make complementary contributions to team-level competence.
How it happensRoles and specialization
Stable role differentiation organizes different local activities into a joint performance.
Look more closely
Good coordination often requires difference.
A goalkeeper who behaves like a striker is not more aligned because the two players have become behaviorally similar.
The team's competence depends partly on differentiated contributions that fit together.
Look again